Hunting with Blues

I have returned from High Security space! Our static from last night contains some Blues (who helped my corpmates slay a Loki it seems), and I borrowed their C1 static to get most of that POS Loot out. It’s out and selling, so now I can bug Wrathhammer to roll our C4 static. I want something to do.

The new C4 is empty, and boasts a C4 static. Jumping into that reveals a Pulsar wormhole, with two towers. Both are Blue to us. Hrm.

This wormhole has a further C4 static, so I scan that and jump in, revealing a Tengu on scan with wrecks. AWW YEAH. Or not, it appears, as I’m quickly convo’d by a member of the alliance whose WH I just departed. It’s their Tengu. 😦 They havn’t opened the next C4 static yet, so there’s nothing for me to do here. I return home, let Wrath know what’s up and log for dinner.

Returning has Wrath yelling at me in chat. Something is afoot! A new wormhole has appeared into our static – it’s a C2 belonging to an alliance rather hostile to us – Transmission Lost. It’s game time – Wrath has scouted them moving haulers and we’ve notified our nearby Blue allies (all 2 of them, right now) and we mobilize a HIC with bombers into the C2 and plonk them all on the C2’s highsec static. 2 pilots from Chained Reactions heard the batphone too, and are en route with 2 bombers via the highsec to help. That makes 2 pilots from us (4 with alts), 2 from BRABODEN (3 with alts) and 2 from Chained Reactions. My my.

The bombers reach us, and an Enyo is on scan. Whilst the C4/High wormholes are within d-scan, the Transmission Lost POS is not. I warp my own Manticore to the planet cluster, revealing the Enyo swapping to a Dominix. That’s it. Nothing else on d-scan in the system. The Domi warps towards the sun cluster, and disappears from all of our scans.

That is, until 2 Dominixes, a Geddon, Tempest and Loki all land on our camp.

Our Onyx jumps out to high with everything else cloaking instantly. Hrm. Where the heck did that come from?

I jump to the C4 to see if any TL pilots are here, when the Chained Reactions pilots call for a warp to it – they don’t want to be stuck in the C2! I can hardly blame them – the Transmission Lost lot bug me. I jump back, polarising myself, and give both pilots a warp-in.

No sooner are the two pilots out, when some rather less friendly ships arrive in front of me.

Sorry chaps, no easy kills here right now

Our trapped-in-high Onyx pilot is reshipping to a Buzzard to come back, but he has the bookmarks, so I wait a moment to de-polarise and slowboat to the Wormhole – jumping in once I reach it.

No flare behind me means the Broadsword hasn’t followed. Probably doesn’t want to jump into a system where at least 2 bombers have fled. Neither do all the Battleships, it seems.

We get everyone back, our Buzzard sneaking past the now unguarded highsec hole. A Myrm jumps into us, and orbits the wormhole with Drones deployed, shortly followed by a Buzzard. I chase it to a planet, but land too far off to lock before he can cloak and run away again.

We weigh our options. TL have a BS heavy fleet, and that Myrm is screaming bait. The 2 Chained Reactions pilots only have their bombers, but the rest of us are not so easily constrained. The Myrm is getting desperate to attract kills now, moving further and further off the wormhole. Our scout puts a Broadsword, Harbinger and Brutix on the far side of the wormhole now. No battleships, TL? Of course, you might lose them on a C4 WH after all.

Right, we have a plan. I’ll grab a Falcon, Wrath will grab an Arazu with faction scram. One of the BRABODEN pilots will also grab a Tengu, whilst the rest field bombers.

We wait till the Myrm is about 30km off the wormhole on another pass and engage. With me still in warp. 😦

The Myrm explodes before I can even lock it, and his pod, now ensnared in a bubble, soon follows. I jam out the Harb and Brutix, allowing everyone else to cloak, and cloak myself.

We’re tempted to engage, but they could jump a whole fleet in! Well, you’d think they’d have done it by now?

The Brutix and Harb seem to read our minds and burn 30km off the wormhole to the Myrm wreck. DING DING ROUND 2 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.

Our Tengu warps in at 50km from the wreck and opens fire early. This would usually mean trouble, but the 2 Transmission Lost BCs burn for the Tengu. The Brutix turns round after a few KM but the Harb keeps going.

We decloak and attack the Harb while I’m searching for my screenshot key

I too bubble everything except the enemy

The Brutix and Broadsword jump out as the Harb explodes, but the pod eludes us. Oh well.

We sit back and wait for the counter attack. And wait. And then wait more. Then we get bored, so we bid farewell to our allies and return home for now. A fun tussel, and nice to chat to some friendly allies!

– – – – – – –

Logging on after some Battlefield has Mick online. We roll the C4 again, revealing another empty C4 static. This is becoming a common theme. The C4 has a C5 static though, and this particular C5 has a Narwhal POS.

The defences are minimal and a piloted Anathema and Cheetah sit inside the shields, alongside an empty Hurricane. There’s core probes up and, surely enough, the Anathema warps off. Mick reports it landing on our C4 inbound, and it jumps in.

Not a minute later, Mick reports it returning and holding cloak. And holding cloak some more. And a bit more. And decloaked on the wormhole. Stationary. Polarised. Deploying probes.

The pod escapes, landing at the tower. In the meantime, Mick has scanned the static C6, scouting it as empty. An Archon has logged on at the POS, but he has a very similar name to the pilot we just shot. The Archon ejects an Anathema and logs off again.

Huh.

The capsule boards the new covert-ops ship, and burns out of their POS shields to drop more probes. Mick has anchored a bubble in the C4 now, and is reshipping to a Sabre Interdictor to sit with said bubble.

However, I point out to Mick that the Anathema wouldn’t be scanning for the C4 – he’s kind of been there. He’ll be looking for a less hostile route, namely the C6. Mick responds by jumping his Sabre into the C6 instead.

Before long, the Anathema warps towards the C6. Wrath has logged on too, and is bringing a Manticore to help snag this scout.

The Anathema jumps to Mick, holds cloak, and jumps back. Mick follows as myself and Wrath decloak. Mick deploys a bubble, but the Anathema cloaks! But not for long, as Mick has charged his Sabre at the spot, decloaking the hapless Anathema. Pop goes the second one.

The pod is now ensared in the bubble!

Getthepodgetthepod

That pops nicely too, revealing Low Grade Halos. Oooooh. Contrary to EVE-Kills prices, those rack up to 410 mill for the Halo set and almost 80 for the Mindlink. Couple that with 2 Anathema losses, both fit with Sister’s launchers, and that poor Narwhal. pilot is 720mill out of pocket.

GF, we knew we were screwed when your CovOps got a look at what we had but our guys wanted to fight anyways. I came looking for you later but you had already rolled the C4. Boo… Hope to see you again soon.

May I also add, if you are suggesting we play it safe with “Of course, you might lose them on a C4 WH after all.” you would be mistaken. There is a difference between playing it safe and making a strategic decision so as not to lead your fleet to certain doom with no hope of even getting kills. While I am all for emulating Sparta, I will skip the Battle of Thermopylae when there is nothing to be gained thanks… Lol

Someone just pointed me at to this blog post. I hate scanning with a passion (and suck at it because i have had very little practice), but was trying to get out of the wormhole with a couple of caps. I later lost the cheetah (and pod) while sitting on a highsec wormhole to a chimera…

The halo implants were used to make the booster unprobeable (I had multiple t3s i could boost from, so no sensor strength implants), but will not be replaced because unprobeable does not exist anymore : /